


Healing Process

by Halja



Category: Finnish Mythology, Kalevala - Elias Lönnrot
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Child Death, Childhood Trauma, Crack Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Referenced Resurrection, Temporary Character Death, don't try to make sense of this because it's not meant to make sense anyway, like very mild, the Jack Harkness type
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9639443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halja/pseuds/Halja
Summary: One lifetime ago, he had been a child, too, and one day he had also worn a chain around his neck, but his was made of rope.





	

 

 

 

 

 

One lifetime ago, he had watched, quiet and unseen and seething with rage and shameful _want,_ as bright-eyed children wove flower chains around their necks and laughed without a care in the world, soft petals tearing and crumbling under their clumsy fingers, falling into the folds and creases of grass-stained shirts and dust-covered dresses, over sun-kissed skin and playful, feather-light scratches.

One lifetime ago, he had been a child, too, and one day he had also worn a chain around his neck, but his was made of rope.

He still remembers the way it stretched and burned over his skin, its sharp bite and then the pull and the snap, and _then_ the sickening feeling of something _breaking_ beneath his flesh. He remembers not breathing, at least until he opened his eyes and could breathe again.

He had tossed the rope away, and then he’d touched the bruises covering his skin, red and purple, blue and black, fading under his fingertips – fading so very quickly, fading until it looked like they’d never even been there. The dull pain he still felt had vanished with them, and suddenly it was almost as if no one had ever even tried to kill him. He had not been surprised. The same thing had happened when they drowned him, and again when they burnt him.

He had spent the rest of the night hidden in the tree where they hanged him, sitting quietly amongst the leaves and branches and scratching the bark until it was too dark to see, painting the wood with pictures of sharp weapons and fire and dead men, fallen warriors and innocent victims alike. His carvings would never fade, he’d thought back then.

The next morning, his uncle came to take him away, back to that place that perhaps he was supposed to call home. They did not speak of how he had survived, of why he still wasn’t dead. They never did. Then again, they didn’t talk much in the first place.

Some time after his hanging, his uncle set about finding him work to do in the fields or the woods, hoping it would help him grow into a respectable young man, one who’d be useful to keep around in his household and who’d be too busy to think thoughts of revenge. Admittedly, it was a fairly difficult task.

He still doesn’t think he’s the only one to blame, though, if he never put too much effort into doing as good a job as the man who always wanted him dead expected from him.

 

 

In _this_ life, a man who once was Lemminkäinen dips his head to bite into his neck, softly.

He stiffen into his touch but lets him nibble and lick and suck as he pleases, lets him graze and scrape his skin with his teeth, over and over again. He just _lets him,_ shivering and moaning and closing his eyes shut under the warm weight of his body, until he _can’t_ anymore, and then he _has_ to grip his long red hair and push his hips up against him. Neither of them has ever been particularly patient, in any life they’ve ever lived. Not-Lemminkäinen snorts and pushes him back, pinning him to the bed, but then he relents and covers his mouth with his own, until their lips are swollen with kisses and bites, their faces flushed, their breaths quick and ragged.

Later, he looks at himself in the mirror. His lover’s bites frame his neck like a flower chain made of red blooms. When he runs his fingers all over them, they do not fade. He does it again, but they’re still there.

He looks up and he catches the reflection of Not-Lemminkäinen’s gaze inside the mirror – his wild, fiery hair and his wild, fiery eyes, and then that grin, huge and lazy and self-satisfied to the point of arrogance.

Later still, Not-Lemminkäinen kisses all the places where he remembers the burns had been, too, and then his chest, where his lungs had filled up with the sting and burn of salt water, and finally his belly, right where he had once split it open on a sword and thrust the blade deep into his own flesh. They don’t talk about all those long-faded wounds, but the redhead marks them with his mouth and his hands like he wants to claim them – like he, too, won’t ever forget them. Not-Kullervo can’t find any words to answer to _that,_ and so, instead of talking, he kisses that spot on his lover’s back where the snake-arrow pierced the skin, so long ago, releasing its burning venom into flesh and muscle.

Not-Lemminkäinen’s told him that most nights, in his dreams, he can still feel the bitter cold of the black river of the dead in his bones, in his blood. Now, Not-Kullervo decides it’s only fair to try and warm him up in whatever way he can.

 

 

When it’s all over, and they lay spent and tired between messy, sweat-soaked sheets and talk about nothing in rough, hushed voices, they finally begin using their new names. They don't sound like lies anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
